Still hating Word and numbered headings?

Subject: Still hating Word and numbered headings?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 09:15:59 -0400


Brian Gordon wondered: <<I created a new template. I then created a new heading style. I made it a List style, called it Heading 1 num, clicked OK, and this caused all other heading styles to disappear.>>

Might be a problem that results from the fact that Heading 1 is a reserved style built into Word. I'm surprised Word let you replace it. I've never tried replacing it with a different Heading 1, but that doesn't seem safe and if you did it, it probably represents a bug. Better bet is to simply redefine the properties of the existing Heading 1.

<<I now have: Heading 1, 1 Heading 1 num, 1.1 Heading 2, 1.1.1 Heading 3 etc.>>

I'm not sure what you mean by "disappear" or why you have these four heading styles if they "disappeared", but since Heading 2 and Heading 3 are sometimes defined as "based on" Heading 1, I imagine they'd suddenly be undefined and uncooperative if you got rid of Heading 1. Given the names of the headings, I'll bet that you're using Word XP or 2003, which creates new styles based on old ones if you modify an existing style to override the original definition as you described.

Best bet would be to delete the new styles, leaving only Heading 1, and modify the style definition directly. If worst comes to worst, delete the current version of Normal.dot (the Normal template) or (better still) replace it with a backed up version that hasn't sustained this damage. When you restart Word, it will create a fresh copy of Normal if it can't find one, so that's no problem.

And always avoid Word's autonumbering. It's been broken badly since at least Word 97, and possibly one or two versions earlier. The only effective way to autonumber in Word is to use an automated version of sequence {SEQ} codes, as described in the following document: <http://www.knopf.com/tips/autonumber.html>

I used to think that Microsoft was negligent in not fixing autonumbering for so long, particularly given how easy it would be to replace it with an automated version of the {SEQ} codes described in Dr. Knopf's document, but it suddenly occurs to me that they may share my antipathy for numbered headings. That is, they may correctly believe that any hierarchy that requires serious numbering is probably a flawed hierarchy to begin with. Yeah, that's the ticket! <g>

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Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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Still hating Word and numbered headings: From: Brian Gordon

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